Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This season, before summer, it is time for a peninsula beach recovery plan. What we have seen over the last year and a half is the erosion, damage and destruction of many of the great beaches of the peninsula. First, over many years now we have been battling to ensure that there has been a full remediation plan for Mount Martha North Beach. The beach boxes, the owners and the visitors have all suffered as a consequence of inaction by the state government. Finally there was an act of beach replenishment but, without the proper maintenance work and remediation, so much of that replenishment has been simply wasted. We need a remediation plan. We need that work to commence this summer and we need it to be in place soon. The government has had ample notice. Second, we need work on Rosebud and Blairgowrie beaches and above all else, as part of the peninsula beach recovery plan, a plan to replenish, remediate and protect the great national icon that is Portsea Front Beach. That beach has been degraded substantially. It coincides with the channel deepening process. It coincides with the warnings. It coincides with the completion of work and there has been relative inaction by the state. That must finish. Action must be taken. We need this peninsula beach recovery plan in place before the election.